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:: 2008 20 April :: 10.39pm

STRESS CHECK
One paper due Tuesday. Exam for same class on Tuesday. Currently have a D+ in this class. Thank goodness I can write it in English.

One paper due on Friday. Tons of questions also due on Friday. Currently have a C in this class. Oh PS this is the one in French.

One paper was due last Friday. I stayed up all night writing it. Got maybe two hours of sleep. I do not want to do that again but here I am, not writing any papers.

Two exams next week.

Laura's birthday on Thursday. The What's Morally Wrong with Homosexuality guy is coming on Wednesday. I would like to get these things done ahead of time but I just wasted all my weekend.

I = lame ass.

I = love you all.

m&ms487

:: 2008 19 April :: 12.16pm

About to go to work...again. I haven't had very many hours the past few weeks, but it seems like I've been more.

So, Thursday night I got elected President of Kappa Kappa Psi for next school year. I'm quite excited...but by now the giddiness has worn off and I'm spurting ideas through every possible orfice. gross.

Anyway, I'm trying to get enough financial aid for next year so that I won't have to work....well, I'm not exactly trying...I'm just waiting for Central to put together my financial aid package and I'm waiting for them to decide if a 3.93 is a high enough gpa to qualify me for a scholarship. hah.

Looks like it's going to be all A's this semester. Perhaps my name will be in the newspaper. That would be grand.

:: 2008 19 April :: 12.51pm

Monk
Nick and I have been watching Monk all weekend. I am glad I finally got him to watch and like this show.

Every time Monk talks to his psychiatrist, which happens in almost every episode, I get really sad. Stanley Kamel died last week.

This made me cry, it's a full page ad that the cast of Monk placed in Daily Variety:
Read more..

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:: 2008 15 April :: 8.59pm

So Gillian Anderson in Maxim? HAWT!

She is sadly not up on the website yet. Would you believe that I spent most of my weekend on that website?

:: 2008 12 April :: 1.31pm

In the GRap Press
Canceled Canceled Aquinas lecture a 'missed opportunity,' gay-advocate speaker says

"The college recognizes academic freedom certainly in the classroom," [Balog] said. "But even in the classroom, professors are not supposed to use their activities as a way to attack beliefs of the church."

Aquinas cancels gay-rights speaker

"The programming board had been actively advertising since January and they canceled the morning of the event. It was very disrespectful to Corvino, and to the students that wanted to hear him speak," said junior Bev Pels, 21.

"I think they're not bringing him because there's so much outside pressure. It's not that the administration is homophobic, but the policy appears to be that way and it's alienating to students."

She said organizers are hoping to find a new, off-campus venue that can seat up to 70 people. Corvino has offered to speak for free.

:: 2008 10 April :: 5.23pm

I used to be so proud of my school...
They canceled the speaker. Here is what they said:

"This morning, I met with members of the Programming Board, staff, members from Campus Life, and other students to discuss the establishment of a policy regarding events on campus that might conflict with Catholic Moral Teaching. We agreed that discussion of important issues is something we should encourage as a college and especially as part of our efforts to continue and extend the Catholic intellectual tradition. A committee representing the several constituencies of the campus will be assembled to develop a policy regarding these issues. This policy will be designed to provide guidelines for speakers and activities, including performances of various descriptions. Absent such a policy at the moment and given the amount of time it will take to develop one, I have decided that the appearance of Dr. Corvino, which had been tentatively rescheduled for later this month, will be canceled.

President Ed Balog"

:: 2008 9 April :: 9.38pm

Okay. SO.

Last Thursday, an advocate for gay rights was going to speak at Aquinas. His lecture was called "What's Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?" So I thought, awesome, maybe this will start a discussion...I am so glad my Catholic school is not as Catholic as it seems. Well even though the event had been well-publicized and the club on campus that brought him in had emailed professors to tell/warn them about it, the speaker was canceled at the last minute.

Instead of the speaker, a bunch of students met in The Moose (the coffeehouse on campus) to discuss the reason for its cancellation. It was revealed that the speaker was canceled because it was necessary to present "the Catholic view" of whatever he was going to say. Needless to say, people were pissed.

So all of the people who had thoughts on the event and its subsequent cancellation were invited to the Student Senate meeting today. It was pretty exciting. Most people broke their issues down to the fact that it was canceled so suddenly that it was rude to the speaker and to us.

Then the president of the college showed up and told us that in the bylaws of the blah blah there is something that says all teachings at AQ need to be according to the Catholic belief system. So we all threw a fit. Since it's technically a student-led, student-planned, student-funded event and one of our school things is diversity, we thought it was okay.

Well anyway. It sounded like his hands were tied by donors and by the group that I have learned to hate this year: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. I seriously am not liking this whole Catholic thing. First I had my theology class that taught me that sometimes you stay in a marriage because the other person needs you (and the whole no divorce thing) not because you love them. And now there's this whole if we weren't a Catholic institution it would be totally cool but since I'm seeing the pope when he's in the country and we have CATHOLIC written all over us, we can't be open to others.

So yeah.

I have decided that I am going to be on Senate next year. I'll probably try to be a rep for history club or something but the meeting was just so awesome today that I want to get involved somehow.

I love you all.

m&ms487

:: 2008 9 April :: 11.05am

I just got asked to attend one of my Professor's graduate classes next wednesday for a discussion on George Elliot's Middlemarch with a special guest!!!

So, I am at the library checking out the novel so that I can read it!!!

YAY!

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:: 2008 8 April :: 11.02pm

I have two papers due the week after next week. One in French (6-8 pages) and one that was going to be in French but thankfully is in English (6-? pages). I kind of want to get them started/done beforehand because I am going away next weekend but I don't know if that's going to happen.

Our French class is having dinner at our prof's house on Friday. That's going to be exciting. He was apparently pretty pumped about it today in class.

There was an incident on campus last week and I am going to the Student Senate meeting tomorrow to talk about it. I will tell you more about it later, Nick wants to hang out for a bit.

:: 2008 7 April :: 12.42am

Last week's John Adams recap
I am a week behind in John Adams episodes so tonight I'll talk about last week's episode. I was going to talk about this week's episode too but Nick doesn't want to watch another one and I should take a shower anyway. (this is long so I cut it to be nice to you guys)

On the episode from two weeks ago, poor John went to France and screwed everything up because he didn't know how to deal with the French. Franklin was a playa and John sent J Quince off with some creepy guy to Russia. The episode ended with John being in the giant Rembrandt painting that was The Netherlands of the 18th century and being very ill. On the homefront, Abby infected everyone with smallpox (some might say...inoculated against smallpox) so they wouldn't die. Everyone got really sick. Will Abigail be pissed when John returns without a son? Will John ever go home? Why is Benny Franks so popular with the French? Was that creepy guy a child molester? We find out on last week's episode of JOHN ADAMS.
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:: 2008 6 April :: 3.56am

Wow..
So uh, I just got tear gassed. There was a huuuuge block party(though technically it's about 3-4 blocks) in an apartment complex near MSU called Cedar village, which happens to be across the river from my dorm. So naturally I went to go check it out, though I wasn't able to get out there until roughly 2am. Of course, I see a lot of people running around. I hear screams, shouts, hoots and hollers with the odd explosion here and there. Then when I get closer I start seeing cop cars, cops in full riot gear wearing gas masks, and then I see a guy laying in the street being pulled away, and a massive cloud of smoke comes billowing out of Cedar Village. In essence, it was insane.

I guess I came pretty much right in time for the riot squad and the gassing, yay for me I suppose O_o. I also got hit with it while I was trying to get a look at what was going on. It uh, not so surprisingly, burns. It's kind of like you had spicy food shoved in every orifice, and then got punched in the stomach. So yeah, after that I wandered around a bit more examining the carnage and whatnot. Some highlights:

-After all the riot cops cleared out the area, a bunch of the partiers actually started sneaking back in, and music and fireworks started up along with some chants. This was followed by several much bigger explosions and a second wave of riot police coming through. It was actually quite cinematic. You heard a bunch of blasts, then a wall of smoke billowed up through the area, and wall of men and women in riot gear hurling tear-gas grenades emerged from the haze and partiers ran away screaming.

-a guy actually smashed a bottle on the back of a cop car and got away with it.

-a guy on a bike followed the cops yelling "FREEEEDOM! WE'RE ALL FREE! THESE PEOPLE HERE ARE PAID TO ENFORCE YOUR FREEEEDOM!" He was wearing cowboy boots. A guy standing near me told him to fuck off, and he walked up to him looking like he was going to start a fight or something and said "YOU CAN TELL ME TO FUCK OFF. BECAUSE YOU'RE FREE! ISN'T THAT AMAZING?! WE'RE ALL FREEEEEEEE."

-A guy who looked like a Vin Diesel reject started screaming at some random guy on the street, and it looked like a fight was going to break out. In about 2 seconds a crowd formed around them and started yelling "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" and similar such things. Right before the fourth wave of cops arrived (the fourth wave, incidentally, didn't have any tear gas, so I assume they ran out..), aaaand then he ran like a little girl.

-Homeless people had a friggin' can harvest (cans were everywhere, and broken glass lined the streets in the apartment complex). I saw some of them lugging around 2-3 full sized garbage bags worth of cans.

-random guys were actually picking up the exploded flashbangs/smoke grenades/tear gas grenades, and walking off with them in their pockets, showing them off to any passers by.

-At one point the school chant ("GO WHITE" "GO GREEN") started up. Then one guy yelled as loud as he could " SPARTANS, WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION?!" At which point a particularly loud explosion went off a block over. Then everyone in the area laughed and the guy yelled "THANK YOU!"

Um, but yeah, that's mooooost of what happened. Sadly I didn't have a camera so I wasn't able to get any pics of the event, but I'm sure you'll find pics plastered all over the web and in the news by the time you read this.

Oh, I also heard a couch was indeed set on fire in the street, but I didn't want to venture in far enough to see it.

Anyhow, take care everyone.

:: 2008 5 April :: 2.25pm

The Rock Band tournament last night was so much fun. Our band was Ovaryactive. At first, it was just me and Bekka but then Brad (a kid from our EU class) got his sister and her friend to join us. It was very, very awesome. I did not win most awesome contest but I was still awesome.

Afterward, we went to the bar and I felt like a college student.

The end.

I love you all.

m&ms487

:: 2008 2 April :: 11.43pm

This semester is almost done: there's only four weeks and exam week left. I can't say that I'm not excited for a break, but going home and working isn't my idea of a fun summer. At least I'll be living at the lake, since that's where my parents moved.

I have a few goals for this summer:
1. Practice at least one hour every day.
I really want to get good again, like really good, so that I can audition for a top band. University band is alright, but it's at the level of eighth graders most of the time. There are four bands at Central, University Band being number four. I'm sure I could get a top chair in the third band, or a low one in the second if I really get up on my scales and prepare some technical pieces. I need it anyway, I miss practicing, but it's one of those things I need to make time for or else it won't happen.

2. Write a literary article/criticism for publication
I think I might have found a few books that fit the bill: They are post-modern (1989, 1993), are by an American author, and can be analyzed in terms of gender and gender roles. It's weird how the author makes all of his characters lawyers with wives who are brilliant and beautiful, but lack motivation.

3. Keep working out
I'll be up at the lake, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. I can lift weights in the base, run outside on the circle driveway in the park (about five laps equal a mile and there a few hills), and our living room is big enough to do some work out tapes. My parents work 7 to 4pm, and I should be working mid and second shift, so this should work out well for waking up and working out.

Anyway, those are a few of my goals and I'm announcing them to the world so I have to be accountable for them. We'll see what happens.

:: 2008 3 April :: 11.30pm

Crosby Loggins is ADORABLE. Celeb-crush activate!